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“Takeesha was working one of the streets in an empty industrial area. She called me over and said, ‘Hey, take my picture,’” Arnade recalls. “I was relatively cautious initially because I didn’t want to be insulting, but she opened up and started telling me her life story.”

A former Citigroup financier of 20 years, Chris Arnade, became disillusioned by the narrow-mindedness and greediness of the corporate world. As a way to escape his unhappiness in Wall Street, he started taking long walks with camera in hand. He strolled through Hunts Point in the Bronx, one of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. It was there, while on a walk around town, where he met a very friendly and honest prostitute named Takeesha.

She opened up, he photographed her. Astonished by her honesty, Chris insisted in creating a positive and honest image of her friend Takeesha.

From then on his life changed for the better. He traded his job for his new-found hobby: Taking honest and vibrant photographs of prostitutes, homeless people, and drug addicts in the South Bronx. He would not only take photographs of them, but he would also get acquainted and makes friends with these ‘rejects of society.’

“Hunts Point is a dark cloud with a silver lining. It’s people who are seemingly in the lowest of the low positions who are still somehow resilient. Those moments of resilience can be very optimistic.”

Although there are many whom are against his work (some calling it ‘exploitative’), Arnade stands by his images and his daily walks with pride. In a way, this is Arnade’s way to give back. See, Aranade grew up with the Catholic Church, a doctrine which taught him to do good in order to make up for the sins he’s committed in the past. Although always a very honest man, Arnade’s past with Wall Street haunts him daily, and his new found love of the camera and new friends make up for the piled guilt he felt for many years.

I want to make conventional portraits for unconventional people.

His images are simple, yet quite powerful. He captures these reject’s livelihood in a very honest and nonchalant way. The background is their native space and not a studio. Their clothes is not borrowed, but its theirs. Arnade’s images are crammed with damaged, but optimistic outlooks- he does not what to portray anything different; vulnerability is key. (via PolicyMic)

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Brian Moss, opened a gym in 1982. Better Bodies Gym, located in the heart of NYC, attracted bodybuilders from all over,and ever since 1997, Moss has casually photographed the leading competitors in the bodybuilding and fitness world.

The photographs are part of an on going series, a personal project, that gives insights to the bodybuilder’s life. Moss’ black and white portraits and action shots go beyond the bodybuilders’ physical appearance, and instead accentuates the human side of this ‘superficial’ business.

My images are unguarded, honest and voyeuristic. Whether they capture backstage scenes at the Mr. Olympia or private moments in a hotel room hours before the competitor steps out on stage, these images are imbued with an intimacy that had never been seen before.

Moss’ photographs have become very iconic, and they have influenced the way bodybuilders are currently portrayed in advertisements and mass media in general.

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These disturbing sculptures, created by Jessica Harrison, seem to be made out of real, fleshy skin and hair. For your relief, that is not the case; they are actually made out of the casts of the palms and back of the artist’s hands. The artist chooses to photograph these sculptures against real skin, her hands, to trick her viewers into thinking that the actual sculpture might in fact be an extension of her body. Blurring these boundaries and limits of the body, Harrison provokes questions about perceptions and bodily shapes in relation to the two of the five sense, touch and sight.

Her research considers the relationship between interior and exterior spaces of the body, but looks neither inwards towards a hidden core, nor outwards from the subconscious, instead looking orthogonally across the skin to the movement of the body itself, using the surface of the body as a mode of both looking and thinking.

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Photographer Vincent Dixon and the Mimi Foundation ( a non-profit that helps cancer patients to deal with their condition), join forces to produce ‘If only for a Second’, a poignant book-project that includes the portraits of 20 cancer patients under a positive light.

The participating men and women were asked to keep their eyes closed during their makeover, a step that they weren’t really aware of; they thought it was just procedure for the photo-shoot. They were not expecting to see what they saw later.

The last step of the process entailed the 20 cancer patients and a mirror (a two-way mirror which was hiding photographer Vincent Dixon behind it).

They were asked to open their eyes to see themselves. The surprise they got from the hilarious makeovers clearly shows on their faces- Dixon, behind the mirror, took photographs of their first reaction- a moment of joy, amusement and surprise.

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Miami Project, one of the biggest fairs in the Wynwood district this year, celebrates some of the most sought after artists this year. Most importantly though, as Jillian Steinhauer brings to light in her article ‘The Women of Miami Project’, most of the impressive works here were created by women. Consequently, most of my favorite works in this fair were created by women too!

Here are some of the highlights at the Miami Project art fair:

Brooklyn based artist Kate Clark creates sculptures that are a lifelike fusion of a human and an animal. The surreal object, almost human-sized, investigates which characteristics separate us within the animal kingdom, and more importantly, which ones unite us.

The unexpectedness of the human face on these animals also evokes curiosity. They are obviously reconstructed yet they are not monstrous, they are approachable, natural, calm, innocent, dignified. The facial features are believable and the skin, which is the animal’s skin, has been shaved to reveal porous and oily features that we recognize as our own. The viewer has an intimate relationship with the face and then identifies with the animal, acknowledging the animalistic inheritance within the human condition.

Vanessa German, a multidisciplinary artist [sculptor, photographer, painter, actress, poet] and advocate for the black female experience, creates these female figures that are made out of plaster, wood, glue, tar and found objects: hair, shells, old jewelry. They each represent aspects of female experience, power, and her cultural heritage.

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Jimmy Nelson captures the last glimpses of dying tribes in Africa, Asia, South America, and Siberia.

The photos are part of Nelson’s series “Before They Pass Away,” a captivating set of photographs that beautifully capture the purity and authenticity of a dying culture.

The homogeneous characteristics of today’s digitalized world compelled him to document a timeless document of these tribes.

“In all this homogeneity, people no longer think that their ethnicity and authenticity is valuable. They think what’s valuable is what they see here,” he said, gesturing to the many indistinguishable laptops that sat on almost every table in the crowded cafe before pointing to his heart, “and not in here.”

Since 2009, the photographer has been traveling through the most remote areas of the world in order to capture the “pure beauty in their goals and family ties, [and] their belief in gods and nature.”

With genuine interest and purpose, Nelson embeds himself in the culture of these tribes without judgement. Whenever I see a project of this kind (one that captures the lives of non-western peoples), I feel as though the westerner capturing and creating a narrative based on what he sees, tends to have an air of superiority. In small ways, the images become these objects of amusement. Nelson, however, is appreciative of these cultures, not because they are exotic, but simply because they carry, through their rituals and social rules, an imminent duty to preserve and nurture their culture and social rituals in ways that are, in fact, absent in Western societies. (via huffpost)

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Walter Robinson creates amusing sculptures that work as witty social criticisms about consumerism and popular culture.

I’m fascinated by the human drive to possess material objects and by our intransigent attachment to the things we own. In my work I investigate the ways that consumer products have been crafted to perpetuate hunger for more. Brand and corporate logos, mascots, cartoon characters, advertising text and signage are the semiotic sources I draw from.

Robinson subverts meanings of familiar brands and Western cultural symbols by tweaking their scale, context and color.

With marketing and adverting psychology in mind, Robinson uses seductive surfaces, saturated color, bling and glitter to draw his audience to examine their own relationship to consumer culture and it’s effect on the environment and world events.

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NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance), founded in 2002, is a not-for-profit art fair that showcases international galleries in New York, Miami Beach, and Cologne. NADA’s exhibitors are a breath of fresh air; the young vibe, the weirdness, and progressiveness of this exposition is hard to dismiss.

Here, I gather the most interesting works at the expo:

Estonian artist Kris Lemsalu sculpts and stages grotesque figures. In this particular set, it seems, are two very strange looking dogs(?), wrapped around sleeping bags. I’m not sure what is artist is going for here, but it seems to me that he is trying to set a scene, and a specific one at that. Both ‘dogs’ are covering their eyes, they are wrapped tightly, and they hovering amongst themselves; might it be that these are scared ‘dogs’ at an estranged camp of sorts?

Jonathan Torres, a Puerto Rican artist, creates half-animal, half-human sculptures, that are brightly colored and full of feathers. They are on the floor, nor are the hanging from the upright walls, instead they appear in odd places, throughout the tiny booth of the http://crenaz.byethost22.com/.